


Stars, Hide Your Fire

by gayshitiguess



Series: Let Not Light See [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Star Trek
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Star Trek AU, This Is STUPID, Trill - Freeform, Vulcans, i love it tho, im living, ya girl is losing her mind have this bullshit, yall im obsessed with star trek and im just..., yeah idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-23 15:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16621655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayshitiguess/pseuds/gayshitiguess
Summary: By perhaps the first miracle in the unforgiving and uncaring universe, the USS Mighty had somehow survived the first six months of her five year mission. By perhaps the second, Fjord had survived it as well.Follow Captain Fjord "Tusktooth" and his crew aboard the USS Mighty.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this started with me fucking about and thinking about what positions everybody aboard a Starfleet vessel would hold. It became this. I promise that I'm going to get you guys the next story after Beware, Beware, I just go to New York next week and I don't want to start the story and then disappear for a week. Fret not, Caleb's chapter of the story is coming. 
> 
> This is just for fun. I expect it to have around three chapters and I'll finish it before the week is out. I hope you guys enjoy! As always, you can find me on Tumblr at gayshitiguess. Come and talk to me!! I love getting asks/messages!!!

By perhaps the first miracle in the unforgiving and uncaring universe, the _USS Mighty_ had somehow survived the first six months of her five-year mission. By perhaps the second, Fjord had survived it as well. That was saying something. Even though she was a science vessel and should, by all means, be relatively safe, The Mighty’s crew had, of course, found their way into trouble time and time again. She had served righteously, his ship, as had her crew, even through their frequent trials and tribulations. Their mission, Fjord thought, was reminiscent of the earlier explorations. Those first few missions into deep space, uncharted and unprecedented. Fjord had no illusions of grandeur, he didn’t idolize the likes of James Kirk. He understood the purpose of bravery and adventure, but he valued wisdom and good decisions more than he did making it into history books.

It was hard not to revert to those ideals, though, when they were so highly praised among his teaching. He’d spent months learning not only the practical of being in command but also the abstract. He was told over and over again, fortune favors the bold. In his head, he always added; and life favors the cautious. Even so, he was drawn to the larger than life attitudes o his classmates and teachers. When the water got hot, Fjord could make some stupidly Kirkian mistakes. He was only lucky that he had good people to steer him right when he set his mind on reckless things.

Beauregard never failed to call him out on a bad move. Fjord might have requested a first officer with a bit more diplomatic ability, but he was able to appreciate the value of her candid nature. She might call him dumbass twice a week, but never without cause. Besides, her security was the best in the Fleet. They’d fall apart without her. If she got too testy, he’d just refer to her as Commander Lionett for a week. That always seemed to put her into place.

Caleb, while a bit more hesitant to cause conflict, didn’t care for his Captain's pride enough to leave well enough alone. As the head science officer, Caleb was in charge of the most important operation aboard the ship. He was often the first person who could tell when something was wrong. He tended to be more of the ‘I told you so,’ type when something inevitably went wrong. While that was almost never helpful in the moment, it was exceptionally so after the fact. The Mighty rarely made the same mistake twice.

It was just a transport job. They were just carrying a group of Trill diplomats from Deep Space 3 to Deep Space 5. Really, it should have been the easiest assignment that had that month. Widogast liked to remind Fjord that only five percent of their missions ended in disaster or injury. That five percent felt like one hundred when they were in the midst of it.

Fjord had actually spent the whole day worried about Molly. That was unusual. He could spend weeks at a time worried about Caleb, Beau, or Yasha, but Molly almost never set alarms in his head. Only when they were around other Trill.

It was strange seeing him without makeup or jewelry. It was strange to see him wearing his uniform immaculately, nothing added or torn or personalized. Molly just never felt Trill enough. Not with everything that went wrong. Not with his symbiote doomed to die with him. So he tried to compensate; the kept to those traditional Trill values. He wasn’t as loud, as obnoxious, as bright and funny. When Molly greeted the rest of the crew, dressed officially in his dress uniform, Fjord felt that big brother instinct rear its head. He’d told Molly that he could sit this one out. Nott rarely ever came to meet delegates. He refused. He said that it was only proper that the only Trill member of the crew be among those greeting. Fjord clapped his hand on Molly’s shoulder and gave Yasha pointed look. She stepped just a bit closer.

Greeting politicians and peacekeepers was never easy when his senior staff was comprised of the biggest assholes in the universe. Beau and Caleb didn’t have an ounce of charisma between them, at least not any that they cared to waste on people. Molly, for all his charm, was easily too much to handle. Jester talked way to fast for the vast majority of people to keep up with her. Yasha didn’t talk enough, Caduceus just seemed high all of the time, and Nott was... well, Nott. Even Fjord certainly wasn’t immune to the embarrassment that they were prone to. That much was proven when he shook a Vulcan’s hand without realizing that it was the equivalent of french kissing. The Trill that Fjord had met, Molly excluded, where generally intelligent, kind, and forgiving. There was little cause for nervousness. Even so, he prepared himself the would before a fight; he prepared himself to protect.

Molly wasn’t a tender person, but the one thing that Fjord would fight and kill for was his crew.

After chatting with the delegates for a few minutes, Fjord, despite his better judgment, handed them off to Beau for a tour of the ship. Molly caught his shoulder and spoke quiet enough that nobody could hear.

“Captain,” Molly said, “Do you mind if I duck out on the rest of this?” Fjord could feel the discomfort coming off of Molly in waves.

“What, no Tusktooth?” Fjord responded. It was a stupid nickname that the crew had given him after they found out about his obsession with ancient earth ships. They thought that he should be their pirate captain. Molly referred to him almost exclusively as Tusktooth, and never, ever by something so formal as captain. Molly didn’t take the joke. He smiled, looked down. Fjord gave up and decided that the only thing that would make Molly feel better was getting these delegates off the ship as soon as possible.

“You’re fine, Lieutenant.” Fjord responded, and then quieter; “I’ll warn you when they’ll be on the bridge.” Molly mouthed ‘thank you,’ and headed towards his quarters. Fjord caught Caleb’s eyes following after him.

If those two didn’t fuck in the next month Fjord was going to lose it.

After Molly had left, one of the delegates leaned over the Caduceus, who had been the most pleasant of all of the senior staff so far.  
“Is that not Nonagon?” She said softly like she was gossiping. “I just felt awful when I heard that he wouldn’t be allowed to continue. It’s such a shame to lose such a full life.” Caduceus mulled over the question for a while.

“Lieutenant Tealeaf plans to have a full life of his own.” Was all that Caduceus said, his tone soft and understanding. Fjord shot him a grateful look when he caught his eye.

After the delegates had been settled into their rooms, Caleb and Beauregard walked with Fjord back to their quarters.

“Is Molly going to be okay?” Beau asked as they walked. As much as she would like to convince the crew otherwise, she had her soft spots for her favorites. Among them were Molly, Jester, Caleb, and, interestingly, Yasha. Their friendship seemed to have been growing closer and closer recently. He wasn’t looking forward to the day that he had to sit down with the two women who he feared most in the universe and ask them if they had a conflict of interest.

“He’ll be fine,” Fjord responded with confidence. “Molly doesn’t care what other people think about him.” He stopped to request a floor in the turbo lift.

“Then why is he freaking out about these guys?” Beau asked. She leaned casually against the lift.

“He cares about what he thinks of himself,” Caleb said. Fjord turned to him in surprise. “He spent a very long time making himself someone he likes. It only follows that he would hold himself to high standards. He doesn’t think himself Trill enough, and he is reminded of that when there are others around him.”

“Like you do with Vulcans,” Beau said it without thinking, but Fjord saw the careful mask that Caleb slipped over his face. It wasn’t one that he felt the need to wear outside of a professional context, that emotionless, dull look. Caleb was only a third Vulcan, but he had chosen as a young adult to pursue that part of him. He smiled, he joked, and he was very, very good at lying, but he still had those moments when Fjord was sure that he should have a bowl cut. Caleb didn't look Vulcan at first glance. His hair was dark red, long, and thick. He wore it back most days, the top half pulled away from his face. His ears had the slightest point to them. Fjord had, unfortunately, seen Caleb bleed. The red and green mixed together to make a dark brown color, like mud. Caleb shared a similar issue to Molly. He was, generally speaking, expressive and passionate about his work, but when there were other Vulcans aboard the ship, he slipped into the emotionless mask that creeped Fjord out. Caleb wasn't meant to push all of his emotions down, and when he did, Fjord could almost see the suffering in his eyes. Beau brushed his shoulder with hers when she realized what she'd said.

“Sorry.” She mumbled. Caleb smiled at her. He knew that she meant it. The two of them could be prickly, especially with each other, but they were slowly learning how to interact effectively. Fjord couldn't help but feel a little proud at that.

Fjord collapsed when he got to his room. Dress uniforms just exhausted him. He was tired of being stiff all evening, so he stripped, flung himself on his bed, and slept the three hours he got before someone called him in a panic.

He wasn’t happy to have to drag himself back into uniform and down to the bridge, but he was quick to when he heard that it was a perimeter alert. They were in warp, and nothing should be able to keep up with them outside of Starfleet. The rest of the senior staff met him on the bridge. The harsh lights of a yellow alert flashed in his eyes as he left the turbo lift.

“Ensign, report.” Fjord took the captain's chair as Ensign Boan began to rattle off what had happened. He stood to the side as Molly took his chair.

“A small vessel approaching port. Maintaining warp seven. They have not responded to hailing signals nor made any move to attack.” Fjord nodded.

“How big, would you say?” Fjord asked. Boan checked something on Molly’s console.

“Roughly the size of one of our shuttlecrafts. I can give you exact numbers, sir.” Fjord waved him away and signaled engineering.

“Nott,” he said, “is it possible for a ship around the size of a shuttle to be capable of warp seven?”

“That’s a stupid question.” Nott’s screech broke through. Fjord would have laughed if the situation weren’t so dire.

“Hypothetically...” he prompted.

“A warp seven capable drive is bigger than a shuttle. I don’t need a hypothetical to tell you that.”

“Nott...” Caleb called from his station, a little warning. No matter how hard they tried, nobody could get Nott to follow orders but Caleb. Fjord had accepted this as a quirk of her character and moved on.

“It shouldn’t be capable, Tooth.” She said. Fjord nodded.

“We’re about to come to a stop and then jump to warp nine, get your people ready.”

Nott’s only reply was somewhere between a squeak and a scream.

“Mr. Tealeaf, lets decrease to warp 3 and see if they follow.” Molly nodded and gently lead decreased the speed.

“Still approaching to port, Tooth,” Yasha said to Molly’s right.

“Bring us to full stop, Tealeaf, slowly. Don’t want to spook them.”

“Aye, Tusktooth,” Molly responded.

There was a moment of great tension as The Mighty hit full stop. The only times that she’d stopped moving completely was when she was being serviced. She was a thing meant to move, light, small. The Intrepid-class of ships were quick and smart. She was meant to zoom from one spot to another as quickly and efficiently as she could. There was a strange kind of vertigo that always came over Fjord when he stood on still ground after being moving. Like stepping off of a treadmill. She creaked and groaned as she came to a stop. Fjord rubbed his thumb on the soft metal of the captain’s chair. Keep it together, baby.

“Coming around to bow, Tusktooth,” Yasha reported. Fjord could feel the familiar pound of adrenaline run through him. Around the right left side of the ship came a small ship that looked beaten up enough to be decommissioned and used for scrap. It should have been limping along on some mercantile trade route, but it was keeping up with a Starfleet vessel.

“Mr. Widogast, give me a general scan.” Caleb’s fingers started flying across his console.

“Ensign, open communications, all frequencies.” Fjord braced himself on the edge of his seat.

“No response, sir.” Somewhere to his left, an alarm blared.

“Tooth, I’m picking up torpedoes and phaser capability,” Yasha called.

“Widogast?” Fjord asked, not taking his eyes off of the viewing screen.

“Insufficient data, sir,” Caleb called back.

“They’ve got weapons trained on us, sir.” Molly didn’t look up from his console.

“Shields up, red alert.” The words barely left Fjord’s mouth before he was thrown from his chair and connected with the ground.

-

The next thing Fjord could recall was the whirring of a tricorder and the distinct aftertaste of rubbing alcohol that hyposprays always left in his mouth. His head was pounding and he couldn’t feel his left arm, but he fought for consciousness anyway. Somewhere in the back of his head, behind the pain and confusion was the distinct knowledge that his crew was in danger. That knowledge brought him back to the surface, no matter how much his body screamed for the opposite. He was on his back, his limbs straightened out and arranged neatly. Jester was leaning over him, all of the energy that she had focused in on her patient. Jester might have been scatterbrained and wild when she didn’t have a task in front of her, but when she had someone to take care of, she was efficient and calm. Her dark eyes met Fjord’s. Her usually wild, twitching antenna stood still, white hair flecked with blood and ash.

“Fjord, can you hear me?” She ran a tricorder around Fjord’s face. He pushed it away gently and tried to sit up. “Whoa, no, no lay down! You’re really hurt!” Fjord didn’t listen and immediately regretted it. The bridge shook and spun as he sat up and his left arm screamed at him with the distinct pain of bone rubbing against bone. Jester was quick to take his weight off of the arm and wrap a bone regenerator around his forearm. “You broke it right in half!” Jester’s eyes were large. “Caduceus and me got here as soon as we could, but you've been out for three minutes! You need to stay down.”

“Damage report?” Fjord called to the room. Molly was leaning against his console, red trickling down the side of his face.

“Bulkheads are holding. Shields at 56%. Their torpedo moved at incredible speed, Tooth. It got to us before our shields could go up.” With Jester’s help, Fjord regained his balance and returned to his chair. He could see where the communication’s panel had gone up in flames. Caduceus was bent over the ensign who had been manning the station. There were ashes and scorch marks covering his blues, but no burns on his skin.

“Injuries?” Fjord called.

“Minor injuries on the bridge,” Caduceus replied, “one concussion in engineering. Nurse Nila is handling that.” Fjord nodded.

“Everybody on their feet? Everybody okay?” Fjord laid eyes on everybody on the bridge. Yasha had a nasty bruise on her cheek, but she seemed to handle it well. Caleb was at his station, muddy scratches on his knuckles, but nothing else. Beau was at his side. She placed her hand on his shoulder briefly before taking her seat beside him. Molly was holding one hand to the nasty cut on his forehead and the other was flying over his console. Fjord waved Jester over to Molly.

“Whenever we can, I'd like to open hailing frequencies.” No one from communications answered, so Caleb left his station and set himself on the broken and burning panel. Somehow, he made it work.

“Tooth,” Caleb said, “they’re hailing us.”

“Onscreen.” Fjord replied.

The figure that appeared on the viewscreen was cloaked in darkness, shrouded completely in shadow. Fjord could see a vaguely humanoid form, shifting and shaking in what was either an attempt to seem threatening or actually being threatening. Fjord didn’t shiver or shake. He braced himself against his chair and didn’t give anything away.

“Unidentified vessel, I am Captain Fjord Tusktooth of the _Uss Mighty_ , you have fired on a Starfleet ship. You will stand down now or I will resort to force.” The figure let Fjord finish spinning out the scripted acknowledgment. It's darkened and shadowy head turned sharply at Fjord’s words.

“Captain Tusktooth,” the figure’s voice was deep and distorted, twisted by something mechanical. Caleb perked up at the sound of it. “We acknowledge your distress. We will desist if and when you transport every Trill aboard your ship.” Fjord saw Molly freeze, his shoulders tense. He sat a little straighter and tried to fill his chair more.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Fjord said. “You must understand that I can not and will not risk or end the life of anyone on my ship. I’m sure that we could negotiate something, but there are a few things that each of us needs to know first. I would like your name and the name of your vessel.” The figure shook for a moment. They were laughing.

“Little Captain, if you do not comply, we will simply take them.” The figure snarled. “Do not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Fjord gripped the armrests of his chair. “Starfleet regulations state that I can not risk the life of any members of my crew for the benefit of the greater good. There is no one on this ship that I am permitted to sacrifice. Not only _can_ I not, but I _will not_ sacrifice anyone. I’m afraid that you stumbled upon a captain with morals and a spine. My condolences. Now that you understand where I stand, I say again; You _will_ stand down or I _will_ resort to force.”

The figure was still for the first time since they had begun talking. Fjord mirrored them, squaring his shoulders and staring straight ahead, no sign of hesitation or doubt. The screen cut out. A moment of silence passed over the bridge.

“Molly, Beau,” Fjord finally broke the quiet, “I want you two to take the delegates and lock them and Molly in the brig. That’s the only place in the ship that we can guarantee transporter technology won’t be able to reach. Stay there until we’re sure that the threat has passed.”

Molly looked somewhere between shell-shocked and panicked. He handed his station over to his second and checked his belt, assuring that his phaser and the hilts of his swords were there. Fjord caught his arm as he walked by and held his eyes for a moment. Molly seemed to break through the panic then, warm, red-brown eyes shimmering through.

“Aw, you worried about me, Tusktooth?” His voice was trying very hard to be teasing. “How romantic. Don’t let the bad guys see, they might find out that our gruesome pirate captain is a softie.”

Molly patted his cheek affectionately and entered the turbo lift with Beau. Fjord still felt that turning of acid in his stomach. Fear was filling up his chest, that liquid torture of being separated from someone in danger. That space between himself and Molly and Beau was growing and with it his certainty that something was about to go completely, utterly wrong.

He’d just have to trust them, he supposed. That’s all he could ever do, really. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Protectiveness, the heat of battle, the deal with symbiotes, acrylic nails, and horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning! There is like a little bit of body horror in this. If you're disturbed by the thought of bodies or wounds, this might not be for you! Also, wow! I wasn't expecting anybody to really enjoy this, but I'm glad that there are so many Critter Trekkies out there! I'm so finding my people! I think I'll make this a series to post in between my big stories as a kind of no stress, easy filler! I hope you guys liked this!! As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess! I would love to hear from you!! Tell me what you think about this AU and what position you'd personally put everybody in the M9 on a starship! Thank you!!

Beau had her hand close enough to Molly’s waist that she could grab him and throw him back if she needed to put herself between him and anything that might try to take him away from her. Beau couldn’t exactly explain the protectiveness that she’d developed for the crew so quickly, especially the senior staff. When she’d mentioned it to Caduceus during her required monthly session, he’d suggested that it might have to do with being the chief security officer and feeling an obligation to take care of everyone aboard. Molly would usually make fun of her for it, but not now. His head was forward, he was focused and quiet for the first time in his life and Beau was on the verge of freaking out over it. The blood around the cut on Molly’s head had begun to dry and Beau tried to steady herself. 

 

They approached the delegate’s quarters, and Beau rang. There was a moment before the door slid open. The delegates were on their feet, talking quietly and intently among themselves. Red lights flashed around them. 

 

“Is anybody hurt?” Beau ran her eyes over everyone in the room. Nothing jumped out at first glance. “Good, let’s go.” There were a few glances and exclamations of confusion before Molly cut in. 

 

“We’re in danger and we need to move somewhere without transporter capability. We’re going to the brig until the situation is taken care of. The Commander and I will protect you.” Molly didn’t wait to see if they were following. He drew the hilt of a sword in either hand. Beau ushered everyone out of the room. Molly led the party with the four delegates between them and Beau taking up the rear. They made it to the turbo lift safely. 

 

There was a still and awkward energy in the lift. Beau kept her eyes on Molly as she shifted her way to the front beside him. The brush of her fingers against his wrist was momentary and minuscule, but it was there. Molly’s eyes met hers for a moment.

 

The doors to the turbo lift swished open. There was a single second when their way to the brig looked clear. There was a single second that Beau was sure that they’d make the twenty odd feet to safety. There was a single second that she let her shoulders drop and her muscles relax. 

 

And then there were the familiar whirring lights of a transporter. And then there were two, three, six, ten figures, clad in black armor and masks in the hallways between them and the brig. And then Beau made just the stupidest decision. She charged forward. 

 

Molly was already moving. Beau would have liked to keep him in the lift, but he was fast on his feet. With a flick of his wrist, the hilts of his swords seemed to grow blades, sections of metal building on top of each other. Molly was somewhat skilled with a phaser and pretty dreadful at hand to hand combat, but with a pair of scimitars in his hands, he was devastating. Caleb had put it extremely eloquently once when trying and succeeding to be very intimidating. How did he phrase it? Molly could cut someone from navel to nuts in a second. That had been, perhaps, the only time that Beau had seen Molly at a loss for words, a blushing, stuttering mess. With his swords twirling around him, Molly seemed to be exactly in his element. He moved like water. 

 

Beauregard couldn’t think too much more on it. Her fist connected with the jaw of one of the figures, knocking them back to land on their ass. She swung her booted foot around and connected the steel toe of it with their temple, the momentum throwing them into the wall. With a satisfying crack, they crumpled onto the floor. She rounded on another, rammed her elbow into their stomach. As they stumbled back, they drew a phaser on her. She wrapped her hands around it and angled it behind her. It hit the wall behind her, almost making it into the lift. Beau brought the figure’s head down on her knee and felt the way that their nose cracked. She reached back in a swift motion and pressed the lock on the turbo lift. She watched to see that the door closed and the delegates whirred up towards the bridge. 

 

In his distraction, one of them got a hit in on her. A phaser beam clipped her left side, leaving burning, sizzling flesh behind. They were shooting to kill but they were bad shots. Beau pushed down the pain and swung her leg around, catching the phaser with her foot and breaking the figure’s hand for good measure. She reached to the back of her belt and retrieved the center of her staff. She pressed a button under her thumb. The staff grew to three times its size. 

 

Molly was quick to finish off the figure that had gotten a shot at her, slicing through the small of his back and striking him with the hilt of his sword. Molly’s eyes met hers and through the confusion and fear, they shared in that second the unadulterated exhilaration of battle. They spared constantly, the two of them, and they got into the heat of it quickly, but nothing could quite recreate the feeling of fighting next to each other. Molly had trained in security himself, believing that it was necessary to be multifaceted in his study. Beau’s security teams were well trained and top notch, but she would always spring to bring Molly or Yasha along if she could. 

 

Their moment cost Molly a punch to the jaw which sent him reeling back to the wall behind him. Beau charged, cracking her staff down on the top of the figure’s head. They crumpled instantly. Molly got his footing whipped at where his lip was cracked. His smile was bloody and bright. Their battlefield was empty. Beau tapped her communicator. 

 

“Beau to bridge.” When there weren’t any admirals aboard, she tended to just use her first name. Announcing to the whole crew that she was an admiral’s daughter every time that she commed someone was uncomfortable. 

 

“Bridge, what’s going on down there?” Fjord’s voice crackled through. 

 

“They were able to beam aboard, Tooth.” She reported. “Molly and I have ten unconscious henchmen down here. They were shooting to kill.” Molly was bent over one of the figures. He went to pull off one of their masks, only to take an electric shock. He jumped back and cursed as he shook out his hand. 

 

“Secure them in the brig. We’re holding them up here, but we need to keep the delegates on the ship. If they can beam aboard, they can beam off.” 

 

“Gotcha, Tooth, we’ll be up soon.” 

 

Molly and Beau dragged the figures into the brig, laying them into a holding cell and securing the barrier that ensured that they wouldn’t be able to beam out. Without the adrenaline, Beau was starting to feel the burn in her side. Molly’s face was beginning to bloom purple with bruises. He caught her elbow in his hand at one point. 

 

“You good?” He asked, softly. 

 

“I’m fine, stop being a pussy.” She responded. 

 

“Alright, unpleasant one, no need to get vulgar.” Molly was grinning and his tone was light. Beau felt a little safer, a little better, hearing that nickname, hearing Molly joke.  

 

And then Beau saw a blue light begin to circle Molly, illuminating the lines of his tattoos and glinting off of his fresh blood. She reached out, wrapped her hand around his wrist. His eyes grew wide as he realized what was happening. 

  
“Beau-” his voice was cut off as he faded from sight. His swords clattered to the ground. Beau’s hand was empty. 

 

Her heart seized in her chest for a moment, her breath coming in fast and shallow. She could feel in her gut the stab of loss and failure. She hadn't saved him. She hadn’t been able to keep him safe like she was supposed to. She tapped her communicator, numbly reaching out for the bridge. 

 

“Lionett to bridge,” Her voice was hollow and the formality felt foreign on her tongue. She couldn’t call with her usual familiarity. She was scared that she’d fall apart if she did. “Captain, they have Lieutenant Tealeaf.” There was a stretch of silence on the other end for a long moment. She could hear Fjord’s breath catch. Yasha’s voice cut through. 

 

“What?” She sounded somewhere between shock and rage. 

 

“Commander,” Fjord cut in,  “report to the bridge. They have the delegates as well.” 

 

___

 

Molly woke up strapped to a table. Certainly, his least favorite place to regain consciousness. He felt familiar panic rise up like acid in his throat. He closed his eyes, used the tactics that he had acquired to keep from slipping into flashbacks and anxiety. He counted. By ones, by twos, but three hundreds, anything to distract his mind for a moment as he tested his restraints. Metal. Solid, like they had been welded on. They bit into his skin. His uniform was gone. They had the courtesy to cover him with a thick white cloth, but his golds and greys were missing. As he flexed his fingers, he found that his nails had been cut and his rings removed. He kept counting, going as high as he could before he started over again at 1. He laid his head back against the metal and found cold seeping into his scalp. 

 

They’d shaved his hair off. 

 

He was beginning to abandon panic and adopt fury. 

 

Molly craned his neck looked down at his body, trying to parse where any injury or new scar among the many might be. The first thing that he noticed was his tattoos. They were gone, completely missing. The snake that wrapped around his left arm and the roses that climbed up his right were scrubbed clean, exposing the dark marks that were scattered over his skin. The little white scars left over from his time learning and greatly failing how to handle a sword were gone for the most part. In the middle of his chest, where sat usually, a puffy pink line of scar tissue, there was a wound, freshly stitched together. 

 

_ Oh.  _

 

He knew where he was. He knew the dark reds and golds that were draped over the walls. He was in the first room he’d ever been in, the chambers that he died and lived in. 

 

There was a woman to his right, a white mask covering her mouth. Her dark eyes were wide as she saw him moving. Like she expected him to be still. Like she expected him to be dead. 

Molly couldn’t get words out of his mouth. They were trapped in his throat, stuck right under his Adam's apple. 

 

“Gods...” the woman dropped something metal and took a step back, “gods, you’re alive.” 

 

With a shock, Molly could feel the pain in his chest, the open wound straining against the stitches. He could feel his body, so used to being dead, fighting against the rigamortis to move and reach for life. For anything. He knew in the back of his mind that he had made it through this, that this was in his past and that it didn’t matter anymore, but he was awash in trauma, panic, and grief. He tried to reach for anything that could pull him out of this, but he was drowning, drowning, and he couldn’t find air. 

 

Suddenly, he felt as though he was ripped from that version of himself and shoved into another. He was screaming, screaming, tearing his throat to pieces. He was in pain, his head, his body, his self was searing and burning. The pain eased away slowly and Molly’s body sagged. He was held up by something around his wrists, something biting into his skin. His head fell forward. His knees gave out. His hair was back, long, purple, stringy with blood and sweat. It hung in front of his face. Molly sucked in breathe as deeply and quickly as he could. 

 

“Interesting...” there was a deep voice in front of him, distorted my something that Molly couldn’t place. It reminded him of the corrupted personnel logs from the old ships that Caleb loved to decode in his free time. He’d sat with Caleb and listened as he cleaned up the files bit by bit, making them that much more clear, that much closer to normal until the words run through. Caleb was probably having a field day with the message that these assholes had sent. Molly’s chest ached. He fingered at whatever was covering his wrist. A manacle. What luck. Molly was excellent at breaking out of manacles. The things were good at keeping people in place, but as they got older, they tended to develop weak spots. He started pulling down, applying pressure at the angle that he knew would eventually break the lock. 

 

“Aren’t I?” Molly’s voice was cracked and strained. He sounded like he’d been screaming for hours. 

 

“You’re not like the other ones.” 

 

Molly didn’t like the sound of that. 

 

“You’re no use to us.” Molly  _ really  _ didn’t like the sound of that. The figure moved. Molly struggled to lift his head. The manacle was creaking, so, so close to breaking. The figure was approaching a panel on the wall. Molly pulled down, applying all of his weight to the weak point. The manacle broke at the same as light began to surround Molly. He wondered briefly if they were going to beam him into a sun or an incinerator or just outside of their ship, to suffocate in the cold and black space. 

 

He met the ground in a heap. His body screamed in protest as he splayed out on the cool and damp floor. He struggled to breathe. There were hands on him, gentle hands leading him to lay on his back. He shifted with a bit of trouble, but was glad to have the pressure off of his chest. He tried to breathe slowly and calmly. 

 

“He’s bleeding,” a voice said above him. 

 

“Gods, try and stop it, he looks like he’s been cut open.” another one answered. 

 

“He can hear you,” Molly croaked out. The voices went silent above him, just the shifting of the ship around them to fill the air. 

 

“Nonagon-” the first voice said. Molly opened his eyes and caught the gaze of the woman above him. She was thin, older, and her eyes gleamed with false sympathy. Molly had gotten very, very good at figuring out what was genuine and what wasn’t recently. 

 

“That’s not my name.” He cut in. “I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly, to my friends, but you should stick to Lieutenant if you keep up with that Nonagon bullshit.” She snapped her mouth shut, stuck somewhere between offense and embarrassment. 

 

“Your chest...” the other voice, a man a few years older than Molly with a round face and grave features said. He looked absolutely haunted. Molly lifted his hand to his chest and was met with blood. His golds were missing, but his greys were soaked with the stuff. Molly lifted his shirt and tried to assess the damage. The skin wasn’t broken around his scar, but he was bleeding, inexplicably. He couldn’t decide if it was good that he didn’t have an open wound or bad that he had blood with no explanation all over his chest. 

 

“I’m a sight, aren’t I?” Molly struggled to sit up. The man helped him and led him to sit with his back on the wall. “There were two others, where are they?” 

 

“We don’t know.” The man said. “They took them when they took you.” 

 

“Great.” Molly responded. He took a moment to rub at his wrists before he looked up a the man again. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your names. I didn’t stick around very long when you came in.” The man smiled. 

 

“That’s alright, I’m Nonel Lallas.” He extended his hand and Molly shook it awkwardly. Nonel looked shyly at the ground.  _ Dear gods,  _ Molly thought,  _ he’s cute.  _ “Lieutenant-” he started. 

 

“Molly.” He cut him. “Molly, to my friends.” 

 

Why did he feel the need to flirt in life threatening situations? Surely, he should have better impulse control my now. Nonel looked down again, blush creeping up on his face. Molly needed to get himself under control. 

 

“Molly,” Nonel tried again, “This is Misrod Von. The two of us were just speaking about our options for escape.” Molly nodded. 

 

“Great, what do you have so far?” Molly asked. 

 

“Nothing.” Von cut in. “The room is solid. They’ve been using transporter technology to get us in and out.” Molly ran his hand along the wall he was sitting against. It was rough, almost like stone, and freezing. He could feel the cold leaking into his back. The ground was more of the same, except it had some runoff that made it wet. 

 

“Surely the room isn’t air tight.” Molly mumbled. He braced himself against the wall and stood with some effort. Nonel caught his arm and helped him balance. He patted Nonel’s hand appreciatively. Molly surveyed the room as a whole. It was roughly six feet by six feet by six feet, a little cube of stone-like material. There was nothing in it, no food or water, no beds, just the three of them. Near the ceiling on the far wall, Molly noticed a vent about the width of his shoulders. “Nonel, dear, would you give me a boost?” Nonel nodded and boosted Molly up on his knee somewhat awkwardly. Molly pried the cover of the vent off as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very fast. He regretted having his nails done. He had figured that, the  _ Mighty  _ being a science vessel, he wouldn’t see too much action and could afford acrylics. He had, unfortunately, been wrong. They weren’t that much of a hassle when he was using his swords or firing a phaser, but when trying to pry a vent cover off of its screws, they got somewhat in the way. Finally, the cover clattered to the ground. 

 

“Great!” Molly cried. “I think we can all fit in there.” 

 

Just as the sentence left his mouth, the steady weight under him vanished and Molly crashed to the ground. He landed heavily on his knee and felt something shift there. White hot pain flashed across his vision for a moment and it took him awhile to get his bearings again. He was going to snap at Nonel for abandoning him like that, but when he took stock of his surroundings again, Nonel and Von were gone. In their places were two figures crumpled on the ground, the missing delegates. 

 

Molly crawled over to them with some effort and searched the first for a heart beat, for breathing, for any sign that they were still alive. He found none. He checked the second, and still nothing. As he flipped them over to try and parse whether or not he could resuscitate them with the CPR skills that Jester had demanded the entire crew learn, he found that their chests were cut up. Long, crooked, slapstick wounds. Ribs pried out of place, organs and tissue torn and missing. Molly felt bile rise to his throat. 

 

And then a thought occurred to him. The only thing precious enough to rip a Trill open for was their symbiote. 

 

“Oh gods...” he whispered. He was going to die. Again. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The finality of death, hyposprays, the reality of a certain Q, licked wounds, and miracles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooooow it's been a while. So I never finished this like I promised I would two fucking weeks ago. So, I just spent five days in New York and this coming Saturday, I have to take the SATs. After that, my college classes have finals. You guys will have to forgive me, I'm kind of losing my shit right now. I might post another short little star trek thing before my Christmas Break kicks in, but once it does, you better believe that the next part of Beware, Beware will be out!! Winters Crest will be a joyous time indeed! Hang in there and thanks for being so understanding! As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess. Come drop by and tell me what you thought of the story! Nothing makes me happier than asks in my inbox!!

Fjord, for his part, was doing a fantastic job of not losing his fucking mind. What should have been an extremely easy pickup and drop off mission had devolved within three hours. A crew member was missing and so were the people that Starfleet had charged him to protect. He was at a standstill with a ship not big enough to take on a mini van that had nevertheless debilitated them. He had 56% shields, three injured crew members, and no idea how he was going to eliminate the threat without eliminating his people along with it. 

 

Beau entered the bridge in a whirl of anger, bursting into the place without regard for protocol. 

 

“Do we have anything?” She took her position at the security station. Her fingers were flying across the keyboard. Fjord craned in his chair to get a look at her. She had a bruise blossoming on her cheek and her knuckles were bloodied. Fjord saw Caduceus approach her from a distance slowly, hands outstretched as not to spook her. Unfortunately, the entire medical crew had had the unpleasant experience of dealing with an injured and ill Beau. She was somewhat of a monster when impaired and vulnerable. Fjord watched as Caduceus’ eyes grew big. His tricorder beeped loudly as he scanned her torso. Without warning, Caduceus loaded a hypospray and jabbed it into Beau’s neck. She jumped and grabbed her neck with one hand while twisting the hypospray out of Caduceus’ hand with the other. Her grip wasn’t strong enough to hurt, though. She began to sway and Caduceus gently lowered her to sit with her back against the console. Fjord stood from his seat and kneeled next to Caduceus, who was peeling back Beau’s reds from around a phaser burn on her side. Fjord’s stomach flipped. 

 

“Shit,” he muttered, taking Beau’s hand in his own. She only protested for a moment before her hand went limp in his. She was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Intense, blue eyes poured into his. 

 

“They got Molly...” she muttered at Fjord. 

 

“Try not to speak, Commander.” Caduceus tutted. His voice was low and comforting, the voice that he used around patients and frightened animals. 

 

“I let them get Molly, Tooth...” tears pooled into her eyes. It struck Fjord that he’d never seen Beau cry. He suddenly felt utterly, completely frightened. 

 

“It’s okay, Beau.” He whispered. He pushed back a stray piece of hair. “It’s okay.” Jester pulled on Fjord’s shoulder to get to Beau. He moved back, letting go of her hand. It slumped down into her lap. He returned to his feet, stepped back, and watched as Jester and Caduceus moved Beau onto a gurney and into the turbo lift. 

 

“She’ll be fine,” Jester promised as the doors slid closed between them. 

 

Caleb was at his side in a moment, carefully placing his hand onto Fjord’s shoulders. Caleb’s spine straightened, the notches of it lining up perfectly, sore from his usual, bent forward poster. Fjord didn’t meet Caleb’s eyes but he saw the sheen then clouded them and the way that Caleb retreated from his touch. 

 

“Sir,” Caleb muttered. He was doing well to conceal what he’d just picked up from Fjord. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the reason why Caleb would do that to himself, to pick up all of those emotions that were swimming around inside of him. 

 

“You’re acting second, Widogast.” Fjord cleared his throat. “I need someone who can think clearly right now.” Caleb nodded and handed his station over to another science officer. He took the seat next to Fjord. 

 

“Sir,” Caleb said again, “what is our next move?” 

 

Fjord rubbed his face in his hands, whipping away the sweat on his brow and the lingering blood that had trickled down his neck. He took in a deep breathe, filling his lungs in until it hurt. There was inside of him a great upheaval, a storm in his chest that was loosed to wreak havoc as soon as trouble arrived. Fjord was a delicately balanced individual. He had worked very hard to earn his rank, to earn his life, to earn his very right to exist. His mother was a slave, his father a man with no face that forced another mouth to feed onto her. She had escaped that life and brought him with her. She’d given her life, in the end, to make sure that he could have his. He had started with no name, no face, no reason for anyone to give him a second look and he fought. He fought tooth and nail to be where he was. He had one shot. He had one opportunity to make the life that his mother had dreamed and died for him. He was not going to let someone else take that away from him. He was not going to let someone take that away from Molly or Beau or anybody else on his ship. That was something that he could not allow. 

 

He breathed, filled his lungs up until it hurt. The storm calmed. 

 

“Okay,” He said. The bridge calmed at his voice. Everyone sat still at attention. He was in control. “Here’s the plan.” 

 

___

 

Molly wasn’t sure how long it had been when Nonel and Von returned, but when they did, he expected bodies. He expected their chests to be torn open, their symbiotes torn out, gore and blood and bile. He expected to have to see that, to have to look at bodies that he had names to. He’d never seen that before, he thought. He’d never seen somebody he knew like that. 

 

Death wasn’t something that Molly spent a lot of time thinking about. Maybe it was the nature of his species, but death never felt truly final to him. When spoken about in conversation, Molly always referred to death as a bridge, movement from one state to another. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily true for him. He didn’t truly have context for what it meant when they told him, but he knew that his symbiote would not continue after him, for fear that what happened the last time would happen again. He knew that it ended with him. He knew now what that meant.

 

Staring down at the bodies around him, Molly reconsidered his position. They were so still, so stiff. Any moment, Molly expected them to move, to shift, to take in a breathe or let out a sigh. They were still, save for the blood and fluids bubbling and settling in their empty chests. Watching as their bodies settled into themselves, Molly was struck with how dead they were. How really, really dead. It was final, what they were. It wasn’t going to change. There was no stitching them together. Not even Jester could save them at this point. They were done. They were finished and it felt so suffocating. Maybe it was that distinct smell of decay or maybe it was how small the room was, but Molly felt everything coming down around him, crushing him, breaking down his bones and squeezing his organs. He curled up as tight as he could and tried to wait it out. 

 

A shuffle of clothing against stone. The gushing sound of blood leaving skin. Heaving breaths that were not his own. 

 

Molly uncurled himself to see another body on the floor. Von, splayed out, her robes torn open and stained with blood. Her sharp eyes were glazed over and staring blankly at the ceiling. Beside her, clutching his chest, eyes bulging in shock and pain, but alive, so, so alive, was Nonel. He was hyperventilating, covered in blood but seemingly unhurt. Molly reached forward and wrapped his arms around Nonel’s shoulders. He pulled him back, tucked Nonel’s head under his chin, tried to help him breathe the way that Yasha always did. 

 

“Shh...” he soothed, “it’s alright darling, breath.” A soft, terrible sob escaped Nonel. “I know. I’ve got you.” 

 

They stayed like that for a while, Nonel curled into Molly’s chest, Molly bent over him protectively, ready to disrupt any transport that tried to take him away again. Molly noticed then how very young Nonel was. By all accounts, Molly was roughly thirty-two, thirty-three. Nonel was about ten years his junior, most likely just beginning his work in Trill politics. He was probably the assistant to one of the bodies on the floor. Molly held him that much tighter. 

 

“Oh,  _ gods... _ ” Nonel finally spoke. Molly retreated minutely, just enough to meet his eye. 

 

“Are you hurt? Did they do anything to you?” Molly tried very hard not to sound frantic. Nonel’s brow furrowed. 

 

“What?” He whispered. “Wha- no, no I’m fine, I- they just- they looked...” he trailed off when he couldn’t find the words. 

 

“They looked into your past.” Molly supplied. Nonel nodded and cast his eyes on the bodies around them. 

 

“Their symbiotes...” his voice sounded heavy with horror. 

 

“Why didn’t they take yours?” Molly suddenly said. Nonel’s eyes swept back to his. “I know why they didn’t take mine, but why not yours?” Nonel’s eyes seemed betrayed at the question. 

 

“I don’t have one.” He said. 

 

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ Oh, that made sense. That made too much sense. Why hadn’t Molly thought of it before? Of course, they were after their symbiotes. That’s why they asked for all of the Trill aboard. 

 

“I passed all of the tests and everything,” Nonel continued, “and I have accomplished a lot in my field, but when I applied, they told me I wasn’t compatible. I chose to enter politics and fight for the rights of those without symbiotes.” 

 

“A worthy cause...” Molly muttered. He wasn’t actually paying that much attention to Nonel’s story. He was trying to put it together in his head still, to put all of the pieces in place. 

 

“So...” Nonel must have picked up on his lack of attention. “What do we do?” Molly let the question stew with the smell of blood around them. 

 

“We could always try the vent again.” 

 

___

 

Fjord made sure to make every member of their away party swear not to tell Beau when she woke up. She was in surgery with Jester, getting her side back in one piece. Caduceus had agreed to join them on the away party even though Jester was much better at working in the field than him. She was a skilled surgeon and freakishly good at slapstick triage. It was really a toss up on the brass whether to put her or Caduceus in charge. He matched her skill for surgery with his skill for internal medicine, and watching the two of them work together was amazing and somewhat terrifying. After looking at her record of causing utter chaos wherever she went, they decided to stick with the more mild-mannered Clay. 

Yasha had less requested and more demanded that she be part of the team, in her own way. She didn’t say a word, but she did follow close on Fjord’s side as he left the bridge, only stopping to retrieve Molly’s swords to strap to her belt and something large and wrapped in a black cloth that Fjord was kind of afraid to ask about. He was not about to tell her what to do. Captain though he be, Fjord was aware of the fact that he absolutely could not make these people do anything that they didn’t want to do. He had no power over them except their respect which, so far, had worked well. They believed in him, he supposed. They believed that he was doing good where he could. He feared the day that they disagreed with him in a fundamental way. 

 

He’d left Caleb with the conn and orders to remain in direct contact with them until they returned aboard  _ the Mighty.  _ With Caleb’s voice in his ear, Yasha at his side, Caduceus ready to slap someone back together, and two of Beau’s security officers at his back, Fjord was ready to transport himself and his people into the belly of the beast. He knew that Beau would jump down his throat the minute she found out that he’d transported himself off of the ship with his first officer down. He knew that she was completely right, that he was putting himself in unnecessary danger. But Beau was in surgery. Molly was on an enemy ship and Beau couldn’t stop him from going to save his people. 

 

“Caleb,” Fjord tapped his communicator. 

 

“Here, Tooth,” Caleb reported. “We’re ready for you. We’re going to transport you in where we think the bridge is.” Fjord nodded but didn’t close his channel with Caleb. 

 

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Fjord turned to everybody in the room, “we’re transporting into enemy territory with no idea what to expect. There could be hostiles. Remember, no deadly force unless absolutely necessary. Our priority is getting Molly and the delegates back aboard the ship alive. If you have the chance to get them out of there, beam out. Don’t wait for anybody else. No heroes. Stay safe. Watch each other’s backs.” Fjord laid his hand on Yasha’s shoulder. He was quiet for a moment. “You know, the first ship that I ever served on, our Captain was always spewing bullshit about how we were a family, how we had to stick together. And of course, us ensigns thought we were so funny making fun of it. But now, being in command and serving with all of you, getting to know all of you, and now having one of you taken away, I think he might have been right. I think that we are a family, the four hundred thirty-two of us. And family means looking out for each other. So, protect one another.” Caduceus hugged one of Beau’s security officers, Keg, too tight. She grumbled but couldn’t seem to push him off. Yasha patted Fjord affectionately on the head. 

 

They all stepped up onto the transporter pad. Fjord drew his phaser, set it to stun, and aimed it at the floor. He spread his legs, took a stance that allowed him to keep his balance, and slowly blew out the air in his lungs. 

 

“Energize.” 

 

___

 

Molly never liked small spaces. He wouldn’t say that he was afraid of them or claustrophobic, but he hated the feeling in breathing in the air that he’d just breathed out. With his knee fucked from falling, he only had his arms to drag him through the vent system. It wasn’t like any system he’d crawled through before. The air was still, not moving, and lukewarm. Most ships were a bit on the cold side, having to constantly move habitable air through the whole of a vessel. That didn’t seem to be so with this ship. It was almost like they just released as much oxygen into the air as they could and let it sit. Molly had only seen that in cheaply made cargo ships with minimal crew and broken air supply systems. He supposed that with a ship so small, a leaking system wouldn’t be damming for a few more months, not like it would be on the  _ Mighty.  _

 

Nonel was crawling along behind him, struggling with his broader shoulders. Every once in a while, Nonel would pat Molly’s ankle as though to assure him that he was still there. Molly couldn’t help but find it somewhat endearing. Although he had begun his interaction with Nonel with flirting, he’d felt a big-brother kind of protectiveness come over him. Molly had never really felt that way about anybody before.

 

He came upon another vent grate and stopped, pressing his ear to the metal of the venting to parse out whether anyone would see them as they crawled over the vent. He listened, heard a set of footsteps and froze. He kicked Nonel’s shoulder as gently as he could to clue him in. Everything in the vent went silent. 

 

“-place is weird, right?” A deep, soothing voice echoed around the hallways below them. He knew that voice. Caduceus. 

 

“Caduceus!” Molly yelled. He crawled forward and started tugging on the vent cover. It was screwed in, but he felt some of the little bars begin to bend and break. A thin, long face peered up at him through the grate. 

 

“Well, hey, Molly!” Caduceus smiled the dopy, lopsided smile that he wore only when he was really, really happy to see someone. “Hey, kids, he’s up here!” Fjord’s face appeared beneath the grate too. 

 

“Hey there.” He muttered. Tooth looked relieved, mostly, maybe a little annoyed, but very, very relieved. 

 

“Listen, we can reintroduce ourselves when we’re back on  _ the Mighty.  _ Can you get us the fuck out of here?” Caduceus made a face that seemed to say ‘ _ Oh, hadn’t thought of that.’  _ He reached up and started pulling on the grate along with Molly. Between the two of them, the thing finally gave up. Molly nearly came crashing through the vent, but Caduceus managed to catch him and lower him slowly to the ground. When his boot hit the floor, Molly’s leg crumpled at the knee. A tricorder was on him in a moment, whirring around the injured thing. There was a slight crash from the vent and Molly looked up to see Nonel crushing Fjord beneath him. Molly couldn’t help it. He burst out into a fit of laughter. Caduceus started chuckling along with him. He wrapped big hands around Molly’s leg and braced it under his arm. Molly thought that was a bit strange, but when he felt big, strong arms wrap around his shoulders and pull him close, he kind of forgot about it. He melted into Yasha and was so utterly relieved that she was there. He rested his head back on her shoulder. He didn’t begin to get suspicious again until Yasha’s hand came around to cover his mouth. 

 

In one, quick motion, Caduceus snapped Molly’s knee back into place. Molly hadn’t even noticed that it was dislocated, but looking at the bend in his leg now, he was starkly aware of the fact that it was bent almost completely backward before. His vision blurred out and he screamed into Yasha’s hand, arching against her to try and escape the pain. Yasha and Caduceus held strong, though. The pain subsided as Caduceus gently injected a hypospray just above the joint. 

 

“This is a temporary fix.” He said. He looked down at the knee like it caused him some sort of great grief. “If Jester doesn’t take a look at those tendons soon, you might have some permanent nerve damage that could affect the way you walk, run, maybe eve-” 

 

“Caddy,” Fjord interjected, “not the time.” Caduceus met his eyes with confusion for a moment before he seemed to understand. Molly tried to catch his breath. “Molly, where are the others?” 

 

“Dead.” He replied. He leaned back against Yasha and took her hand in his. “They’re after the symbiotes. They-” Molly cut himself off to swallow, “they tore them out of their chests.” 

 

“They didn’t take yours...” Fjord didn’t say what he implied. 

 

“They wouldn’t,” Molly replied. Fjord turned his gaze to Nonel.

 

“I don’t have one.” Nonel supplied. He had no shame when he said it, not like Molly did when he had to think about his. He was proud of it, or at least okay with it. Molly, for a second, loathed him. 

 

“So, what’s next?” Caduceus asked. 

 

“We transport you, Molly, and Delegate Lallas back to  _ the Mighty _ -” 

 

“Wait, whoa,” Molly cut in, “no, fuck no!” Tooth narrowed his eyes.

 

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant Commander, what was that?” His tone bordered on commanding. 

 

“I’m not letting you bench me, Tooth,” Molly spat, “you’re not in charge of me.” 

 

“That’s literally my job description!” Fjord practically yelled. Yasha shushed him. “I’m in charge of all of you, except Caduceus when I’m hurt or sick, but other than that, one hundred percent, totally in charge of you!” He whispered. 

 

“I’m staying. Send Nonel back, but I’m staying.” Molly stuck his chin out and locked his jaw. Tooth held his gaze for two seconds, three, four, dark green eyes locked with bright brown. Fjord broke first. 

 

“Fucking fine, my god.” He buried his face in his hands for a moment before he relented totally. “I’m sorry, Delegate Lallas, but you are going back to the ship. I won’t have a civilian in this."

 

“You know, that’s fine,” Nonel replied. “I think I’ve had my fill of this situation.” Fjord removed his communicator and pinned it to Nonel’s chest. Molly reached out and patted Nonel’s hand with his own. 

 

“I’ll see you soon, darling.” His voice held none of his usual joking, flirting tone. He hadn’t the energy for that anymore. 

 

“I’ll hold you to that.” Blue lights swirled around Nonel and he was gone. Yasha tapped her communicator. 

 

“Yasha to bridge.” Molly leaned back against her and felt the vibrations of her voice in her chest. 

 

“This is the bridge.” Caleb’s clipped, nervous tones rang through the communicator. 

 

“Hey, honey, I’m nearly home,” Molly said softly. He could hear the soft exhale that accompanied Caleb’s small smiles. 

 

“I’m glad to hear you’re alright, Mollymauk.” He said. “Tooth, you are near the bridge now, two more lefts.”

 

“I thought that we were near a transporter,” Molly muttered to himself. 

 

“On any other ship,” Fjord said, “it would be, but Caleb’s scan just came back and it was fucking crazy.”

 

“ _ Ja,”  _ Caleb called, “the ship doesn’t make sense in terms of layout. Every ship is different, but there is a general standard for what is safest in terms of placement, keeping the bridge, quarters, and transporter rooms away from the engines, but this ship looks like it's been...”

 

“Sewed together.” Molly finished. “The air...” 

 

“Like it's just been released in the area, no movement, exactly!” Caleb said. 

“Okay, we can figure all of this out later,” Fjord interrupted, “we need to get their guns off of us. We’re taking the bridge.” 

 

Yasha helped Molly stand and handed him his swords. He drew one, let the sword build, and spun it in his hands experimentally. Yasha reached to her back and pulled the large, black package that she had strapped there. A smile spread across Molly’s face. 

 

“You brought the Judge, huh?” He asked. Yasha didn’t meet his eye. 

 

“The Judge?” Caduceus asked to their right. Yasha unwrapped the black cloth, revealing a well maintained, shining silver sword, wider than Molly’s torso. She swung it once, twice, slicing cleanly through the air with barely a sound. 

 

“Are you familiar with Klingon culture?” Molly asked. Caduceus shook his head. 

 

“Swords are not traditional weapons,” Yasha explained. “They are used only for one purpose. A long time ago, there was a string of witch trials in our history. It deviated from Earth’s witch trials by actually containing real witches. This sword was named the Magicians Judge. It took the head off of every one of them.” Caduceus seemed disturbed by that answer. 

 

“Right,” Fjord called everyone’s attention, “there’s only one entrance to the bridge, so we’re going to have to storm. I need Yasha up front with Keg and Miles providing cover fire. Yasha, you go through as many as you can. Leave them alive, of course, and I need the captain conscious, by other than that, go wild. Molly, you and I are going to stay behind them. I’ll be providing cover fire and you’re going to cut down anybody who gets close enough to lay hands. Caduceus, I want you outside of the bridge, taking cover, and ready to take care of anybody who needs it.” 

 

“Go, team,” Molly said. Fjord shot him a smile. 

 

“We missed you, Tealeaf.” 

 

____

 

Caduceus counted. The bridge went down in exactly twenty-three seconds and it went like this:

 

Caduceus was outside of the bulkhead doors that separated their party and the bridge. He kneeled, braced himself against the floor and waited for a signal from Fjord. Molly approached the door, placed his free hand on it and shifted his weight off of his bad knee. Caduceus wouldn’t have given him the anesthetic if he knew that Molly was going to see action. If he could feel the pain, he would know where his limit was. As it was, he was at more risk to cause serious, permanent damage to the thing. 

 

“How are we getting this thing open?” Yasha asked beside them. Fjord didn’t look at him, but he pointed, and Caduceus knew what that meant. He closed his eyes, opened his mind to all of the possibilities in the universe, and chose the one he wanted to see. He snapped his fingers, the door opened. There was only a moment of confusion before everyone let it go and got into their designated position. 

 

Yasha let out a battle cry as she charged the bridge, Keg and Miles hot on her tail. Fjord and Molly met each other’s eyes, shrugged, and screamed along with her. A smile broke out on Caduceus’ face. They were strange, these kids he was observing. When he’d decided to observe aboard a Starfleet vessel, there was controversy among his peers, to say the least. Q weren’t a part of the federation. They tended only to board Federation vessels and space stations to fuck around with them. Caduceus was of a different disposition than most of his siblings. He wanted to understand them, the people who populated the space that he didn’t. He was an all-powerful being of an all-powerful race and he knew everything in the universe. He knew the name of every atom and how they collided. He knew how to make water or earth or air. He knew how to shape the universe to his liking, but he never really found any joy in that. He knew everything, except what the universe looked like through someone else’s eyes. So, he decided that he would observe. He had expected more humans, but he had no qualms about the crew that he’d chosen. His kids were weird. They were friendly and messy and strange. He supposed that they were rubbing off on him. 

 

He heard three phasers unloading on the bridge, the clatter of several bodies hitting the floor. He heard the sound of blades swinging through the air, the distinct sensation of metal cutting through flesh. There was a burst of sound and action for fifteen seconds before everything stopped.  There was quiet for a long moment before Molly’s voice rang out through the hallways. 

 

“Caddy!” He yelled. “We’re clear!” Caduceus stood and made his way onto the bridge. Four men were on the ground, the burn of stun phasers on their chests. All guns and blades were trained on the center of the bridge, where kneeled a figure clad in black. Fjord had stepped forward, his phaser still pointing at the figure. 

 

“Off with the mask.” He said. Caduceus dutifully attended to Yasha, who had a cut down the length of her face. She didn’t seem to notice it. The figure reached up and tapped a catch on the side of their face. The mask tipped off their faced and clattered to the floor. 

 

He was a man, Caduceus thought, though he often had trouble with those kinds of things. He was a man and he was a Trill, which was somewhat of a shock. Caduceus saw Molly’s swords droop as he tried to wrap his mind around what this meant. Fjord held strong, unwavering. 

 

“You took their symbiotes, why?” The man looked up at Fjord as though he were nothing, as though he were a speck in the universe, not to be bothered with. And hey, even though Fjord was just a speck in the universe, Caduceus didn’t much like when his people were treated like that. The man turned instead of Molly, as though he was the only one who was worth talking to. 

 

“You know how it feels,” he muttered, “when they treat you like a second-class citizen.” Molly seemed to recognize his voice. “You know how it feels to be lesser.” 

 

“If you were denied a symbiote, you aren’t compatible.” Molly sounded haunted when he spoke. 

 

“That is what they tell us, isn’t it?” The man replied. “That is what they say to get the masses to cooperate. ‘Only one thousand out of the millions who apply every year are compatible.’ But they’re lying. They have lied to all of us. Almost every Trill is able to carry a symbiote. Almost every member of our society could, but they reserve the privilege for the privileged.” Molly’s eyes were wide, distant, glazed. Shock, Caduceus recognized, though he wasn’t sure if it had to do with what the man was saying or with his injuries. 

 

“Tooth,” Caduceus said, “let’s take this back to  _ the Mighty.”  _ Fjord chanced a look back at him and followed his gaze to Molly. He took the communicator from Keg’s shirt and pinned it to the man. 

  
“Tooth to transporter,” he said, “five to beam directly to the brig.” There was a confirmation, and the men clad in black gleaned blue as they disappeared. 

 

Molly let his sword collapse into itself, hiding in the hilt, and strapped it back to his belt. His wrapped his arms around his middle. Caduceus approached and wrapped himself around Molly in a gigantic bear hug. 

 

“What are you doing?” Molly’s voice was somewhere far away, a response of instinct instead of intentional action. 

 

“You’re in shock,” Caduceus kept his voice low, the voice he used to talk to his plants when they were feeling ill, “I’m just trying to keep you warm.” Fjord approached from the side and gently laid his hand on Molly’s shoulder. He flinched. 

 

“Sickbay?” Tooth asked.    


  
“Yes, please,” Caduceus responded. 

 

By the time that his feet were on the floor of sickbay, Molly’s legs had given out, and he was just weight in Caduceus’ arms. 

 

____

 

The only other time that Molly had woken up in sickbay, he had come down with a case of food poisoning. They had been welcomed onto an M class planet to study its strange foliage and hadn’t realized that a certain leafy green that they used in pretty much every dish was toxic to his certain anatomy. When he had woken up, Beauregard was in the chair next to his bed, ready to shake him away if he didn’t hurry up and regain consciousness already. Beau did a great job of putting on bullshit about not caring, about being an asshole, but Molly was always good at seeing through that kind of thing. She  _ was  _ an asshole, no doubt, but she was an asshole who cared. 

 

She wasn’t sitting by his bed this time. He woke slowly and noted the stiff, unbending pain in his knee. It took him a few minutes to actually get his eyes open, but when he did, he saw someone else sitting in the chair beside him. 

 

Nonel was reading a data pad, flipping through the pages of some book or document every few minutes. He had a red and green bruise blossoming around his right eye, which watered and was swollen half shut. Molly hadn’t noticed that before. He didn’t seem to notice that Molly was awake until he tapped his knee with a sluggish hand. 

 

“Hey!” Nonel said, “Hey, hi. Are you okay? How are you feeling?” His dark eyes were wide and concerned. 

 

“Hey there.” Molly’s voice was rough and his mouth tasted like a rat. “What’s a big shot politician doing by my bedside.” His smile wasn’t half as dazzling as he’d wanted it to be. 

 

“Well,” Nonel looked down at his hands, “I’ve got a few more hours before I’m to be dropped off, and I had hoped to thank you.” 

 

“Whatever for?” Molly asked. 

 

“You saved me!” Nonel said. “I would have died in there without you!” 

 

“I think you’ve got it backward, kid,” Molly said. “I was ready to call it before you beamed back in. You got me up to that vent, you kept your head, you stayed calm. You saved you as much as I did.” Nonel shook his head and smiled. 

 

“Do you do this for everybody you know?” He asked, “Make them believe that they are something special.” 

 

“Only the special ones.” Molly smiled. “Were you debriefed about-” 

 

“About the whole, almost every Trill is compatible thing?” Nonel interrupted. “Oh yeah. You had better believe that I’m going to raise hell as soon as I get home.” Determination spread across Nonel like butter. 

 

“Make them regret they were even born.” Molly offered his hand weakly. Nonel shook it gently in his. “I’ve got my eye on you, Nonel Lallas. You’re going places.” 

 

Nonel left Molly to rest more, so of course, the first thing he did was try and get out of bed. His legs were wobbly and unsteady. His knee ached as he put weight on it. Molly thought for a moment that Jester would have a fit if she saw him. As far as he could tell, he was alone. It took him a few minutes to get his feet under him. It took him a few minutes more to bypass the pain enough to be able to move. It took him a few minutes more to find Beauregard. 

 

She was laid out in white, her face ashen, looking so very small and fragile in the biobed. Her hair was down, taken out of the knot that she usually tied it in, and carefully brushed back. The bruises on her face had transitioned from red to black and green. Her lip was still swollen. 

 

Molly felt himself sag at the sight of her. Beau had a tendency to get into fights, but she never let herself get so broken. She looked so broken. 

 

Molly checked her chart. A phaser wound on her side. Jester had to perform an emergency surgery. Why hadn’t he seen that? Why hadn’t he just taken her to sickbay and avoided the whole thing? 

 

“Don’t pull a Caleb on me.” A cracked, tired voice rang out behind him. “No blaming yourself.” Molly put on a smile. 

 

“Your fault for being so loud.” He whispered. “You’re such an easy target. Biggest mouth in the galaxy” He could feel tears beginning to rise in his eyes. He didn’t realize how relieved he was. It was over and Beau was safe and he was safe and he was so, so relieved. Beau screwed up her brow and motioned for him. Molly was careful not to bother Beau’s tender side or his tender knee as he crawled into the bed with her. 

 

“God, you’re such a bitch, making me fucking cry.” Beau’s voice was choked up. 

 

Molly laughed and closed his eyes. He fell asleep to the gentle rise and fall of Beau’s breath, assured in the fact that she was alive. Assured in the fact that he was alive. It might end with him, Molly thought, but he wasn’t finished yet. He wasn’t done. As long as he had his people to hang on to, he wouldn’t be finished for a very, very long time. 

 

___

 

Fjord’s quarters called to him. It had been twelve hours since they’d arrived back aboard  _ the Mighty.  _ His ship hummed under him, a little worse for wear, but still running, while he sat and waited to hear about Molly and Beau. As soon as Jester came out to tell that Beau would live and that Molly would keep his leg, he just about retreated. It was a miracle that his ship was still running and it was a miracle that his body hadn’t given out on him. The stress of it all was eating him alive. 

 

Fjord’s reds were stained with sweat and a bit of blood that he wasn’t quite sure the origin of. He peeled them off of himself, his greys soon after. He allowed himself a shower with real water that night, none of the conservation, air-clean shit. He made it as hot as he could and stood under the water for the fifteen minutes that he was allowed. 

 

Fjord barely had himself dry and dressed when there was a knock at his door. Knock, not computerized ring, meant Caleb. Caleb was particular about many things. He used the same mug to drink his coffee in the morning, not one of the Starfleet ones, one he brought from home, he made people give him back the hair ties he loaned out. His quarters were surprisingly messy, but in a way that was consistent. He had an area where he kept his clothes, his books, his work, his leisure activities. He was a particular man, Caleb. Among his many peculiarities, he knocked on doors instead of ringing. It was something that Fjord had noticed during their first few weeks of working together, and it was the easiest way that he identified his unofficial third officer. 

 

“Come on in.” He called through the door. Caleb wasn’t in his uniform. Fjord never got used to the sight of Widogast, who was so human to him, dressed like a Vulcan 

 

“Tooth,” Caleb reported, “we have secured the Trill vessel in our loading bay. Upon inspection, Nott informed me that it is, as we suspected, cobbled together from multiple different ships. The only thing that functions properly on the ship is their transporters. She’s not sure yet, but Nott hypothesized that they were reverting so much power to their transporters that other systems began to fail.” 

 

“And the crew?” Fjord asked. 

 

“All alive. I’ve seen that they are all secure in the brig. We are two hours away from transporting Delegate Lallas to Deep Space 5. They have agreed to hold them until they can be transported to their homeworld.” 

 

Fjord nodded and rubbed at his eyes. He wanted nothing more than sleep. 

 

“Have we decided whether or not to discuss the matter of the symbiotes with the Trill council?” Fjord asked. 

 

“I hardly think we could stop Delegate Lallas from pursuing it.” Caleb cocked his head to one side. “I will see what support we can lend him on our end.” 

 

“Good.” He sighed. “All relatively good news. Oh, and Molly and Beau are both doing fine. They should be tearing each other’s hair out in a few days tops.” Caleb nodded in turn and let a small smile creep onto his face. Fjord chased those moments of emotion, those little things that Caleb let through the cracks in his walls. 

 

“I was...” Caleb took a moment to try and find the right word, “I was very concerned when we discovered Mollymauk was taken. It is a relief on my mind to know that he is safe again.” Fjord gave him a knowing look. Caleb’s cheeks dusted brown. 

 

“You know he likes you too.” Fjord said. “At least as far as I can tell.” 

 

“Mollymauk has flirted with everyone on this ship at least once, except for me. I believe that I am the last person that he would ‘like.’” Caleb almost sounded embarrassed. 

 

“That’s exactly how I know he takes a shine to you!” Fjord said. “He wouldn’t treat you like everybody else on this ship if he considers you special.” 

 

Caleb let out a kurt, sharp breath and didn’t seem to accept it. Oh well. They would find their way to each other eventually, Fjord thought. He’d just have to meddle with Beau and Yasha for the time being. 

 

“Go get some sleep, Widogast,” Fjord ordered. “You’ve had as long a day as any of us.” Caleb gave him a nod and turned to leave. Fjord patted his shoulder as he passed, tried to fight down the inherent anxiety of letting any of them out of his sight, and listened to the steady, rhythmic footsteps as they retreated down the hall. 

 

Fjord barely made it to his bed before he collapsed. 

  
By perhaps the first miracle in the ever-baffling, ever stranger universe,  _ the Mighty  _ had survived the last twelve hours. By perhaps the second, so had Fjord. So had Molly, so had Beau. He supposed that he really could only be grateful for that. God help him, he had to be grateful for that. 


End file.
